Finding Arun (22 page)

A few minutes later, Lucky eased the rickshaw to a
standstill outside of their house and when he killed the engine
they were plunged into darkness. Blindly, the trio disembarked the
vehicle, giggling as they bumped each other accidentally in the
blackness of the night.

‘So, how about it, Arun?’ came Lucky’s voice from
somewhere up ahead.

‘How about what?’

‘
Getting married. You have all these beautiful
mandir girls to choose from … I think we should start
calling
you
Lucky!’

‘
Both of you
would be lucky to marry
any
of those girls,’ interrupted Hanara, finding
Lucky’s shoulder and shoving him playfully in a half-hearted
attempt to defend her friends.

‘Your friends are lovely, Hanara,’ began Arun,
trying hard to stifle a giggle because he didn’t wish to offend his
sister now that they were finally getting along, ‘they just ask a
lot of questions.’

‘Women do that,’ retorted Lucky, swerving to avoid
another of Hanara’s shoves.

‘Not all of them, Lucky … your friend, Chandni, she
was very quiet,’ remarked Arun, surreptitiously trying to steer the
conversation round to the only girl that he was interested in
discussing.

‘Oh, she is not quiet, just a little shy. She always
takes some time to get used to people that she doesn’t know,’
replied Hanara dismissively.

‘How long have you known her for?’

‘Oh, just about her whole life. She’s your age, I
think.’

‘How did you meet her?’

‘Everybody knows Chandni. Rajubhai Joshi has been
bringing her to the mandir practically every day since she was
born,’ answered Hanara, her voice trailing off as she disappeared
into the house.

‘Rajubhai Joshi?’ queried Arun, stopping at the door
to the house and turning to Lucky for an explanation.

‘Yes, Arun,’ he answered impatiently, shoving his
brother forcefully into the house, ‘Chandni is Rajubhai Joshi’s
daughter.’

THE days hurtled towards Rath Yatra and Arun felt
himself becoming increasingly absorbed in village life, and less
enthused by his impending departure. Though living was basic
compared to the standards back home, working in the shop each day
and being in the presence of Lucky and Hanara gave him the sense of
belonging and purpose that he had craved for most of his life. They
were creatures of habit and though the repetitive nature of their
daily schedule could easily have led to monotony and boredom, Arun
relished the predictable simplicity of their routine. Each morning
he would rise with his siblings to sit in on their morning prayers;
an activity that for him was less about religious beliefs and more
about aligning himself with his family’s customs. Together they
would enjoy a light breakfast, and after Lucky departed for work,
Arun walked the few paces to the shop to open up for the day,
leaving Hanara to tend to the housework and fields.

Managing the shop was becoming an easier task as
Arun began to experience mutual recognition from his customers,
engaging them in light-hearted conversation whilst he pulled the
items that he knew they had come for from the depths of the shack.
On the rare occasions that the shop was quiet, he would close up
early and surprise Hanara by trekking out into the fields to assist
her with carrying the day’s harvest back to the house. When Lucky
returned at the end of each day, Arun helped him to unload the
goods that he had bought in the city to replenish the shop’s stock,
and when the sun set on rural India, he joined his family once more
to enjoy another of Hanara’s tasty home-cooked meals. Once dinner
was over, Arun changed into one of the old tunic ensembles that
Lucky had gifted him, and the three of them would pile into the
rickshaw to travel to the mandir.

The nightly visits to the mandir came to be the best
part of Arun’s day, for they epitomised all that he had come to
love about India. From Rajubhai Joshi’s melodic chanting and the
smell of burning incense, to bowing his head to the Elephant God
and accepting prasad for his devotions, a deep sense of
spirituality prevailed within Arun whenever he set foot inside the
temple. Sharing in a ritual that held such great importance for
both his siblings and the wider community made him feel like a part
of something much greater than he had ever experienced before. The
villagers greeted him like an old friend, recognising him from both
his visits to the mandir and from his work in the shop, and
collectively they seemed to appreciate his efforts to ingratiate
himself. He still didn’t understand the words of the prayers, but
he looked forward to the enforced silence that they brought, using
the time for a deep introspective to process the new events,
thoughts and feelings that he was experiencing. And still there was
another unexpected perk to his daily visits; a perk that was
rapidly evolving into the driving force behind his dedication to
attendance.

Seeing Chandni was Arun’s reward at the end of each
day; a pint-sized figure, whose shining green eyes and sweet smile
had captivated him so much that he found himself offering up a
daily prayer for more time in India to feast on her beauty. He had
been unable to shake the imprint of her smile from his mind since
their first meeting, and attending the mandir each evening was the
only way to guarantee a glimpse of her. Their exchanges were few
and far between, and brief when they did occur, because Chandni
always seemed to behave in a very restrained manner within the
confines of the mandir. Her reserved demeanour should have caused
her to be overshadowed by the self-aggrandising ramblings of
Hanara’s other friends, but the quiet mystery surrounding Chandni
was the voice that called out to Arun most clearly.

Frequently tired of waiting for her father to finish
each night, it was only on the occasions when they dropped Chandni
home that Arun was able to enjoy any time alone with her. Hanara
and Lucky engaged in their own conversation, finding it too
difficult to be inclusive over the sound of the rickshaw’s engine,
and once they had started to get to know each other, Chandni had
relaxed in Arun’s company, just as Hanara had reassured him that
she would. She was an intelligent young woman, though sometimes
fearful of sharing her views and ideas about the world lest they
should offend anyone, and Arun found himself hanging on her every
word. The days were long, but they were deeply satisfying to Arun’s
soul and when he collapsed into bed each night beside Lucky, he was
silently grateful for having found so much more than what he had
come looking for.

The ritualistic pleasures upon which he had come to
depend were rudely disrupted one evening, when Chandni was not
present at the mandir. No-one else seemed to notice or even be
concerned by her absence, but Arun felt an unexpectedly huge pang
of disappointment when he scanned the crowds for her face to no
avail. That night he was unable to sleep, wondering what might have
kept her away, and the next day in the shop passed impossibly
slowly while he waited, anxiously, to see whether she would return
that evening. When Chandni had been absent for three consecutive
days, Arun began to worry. From everything he knew, it was not like
her, and though she wasn’t a frequent customer, the fact that she
had not visited the shop at all in the preceding week greatly
unsettled him. Irrationally, he feared that something untoward
might have happened to her, but he was mostly troubled by the
prospect that he might not see her again before he had to return
home.

Rath Yatra was approaching fast and although he had
already decided to return to Puri at the next available
opportunity, he didn’t know when that might be. Not knowing for
certain when he would next see Chandni’s smiling face caused him
physical pain in his chest: a dull, aching pain that only
intensified each time he queued to accept prasad and was forced to
look into Rajubhai Joshi’s eyes that were so like his daughter’s.
Not wanting to arouse suspicion about his feelings, initially Arun
resisted the temptation to ask his siblings about Chandni’s
whereabouts but, when he could stand the uncertainty no longer, he
finally broached the subject while they were on their way home one
evening.

‘I haven’t seen Chandni in a few days,’ he remarked,
in the most nonchalant voice that he could muster.

‘Hmm?’

‘I haven’t seen Chandni in a few days,’ he shouted
again, over the noise of the rickshaw’s engine.

‘Oh, no, me neither,’ Hanara replied,
nonplussed.

‘I hope that she’s okay?’ he tried again,
tentatively.

‘I think I heard someone saying that she is not
feeling well. She’s probably just staying at home so that she
doesn’t give the whole village whatever it is that she has. I’m
sure she’s fine,’ Hanara concluded.

It was a relief to hear that Chandni was likely
resting at home, but without any additional information about the
extent of her illness, Arun was still no closer to knowing when she
might resume her visits to the mandir. He lay awake in bed that
night with Lucky fast asleep beside him, oblivious to his woes, and
tried to figure out how he could get to see Chandni in the event
that she didn’t come back to the mandir before he left India.

It wasn’t until the following day, whilst he served
Mrs Satpathy in the shop, that the solution came to him. He
resolved to pay Chandni a visit at home under the guise of checking
that she was okay, though it was largely to fulfill his selfish
desire to see her. It seemed the most logical course of action and
he was sure that after several days alone in the house, whilst
Rajubhai Joshi had continued with his daily duties at the mandir,
she would be glad of the company and, perhaps, even pleased to see
him. The only question that remained was when to visit? He could
suggest it to Lucky and Hanara, but he was desperate for an
opportunity to be alone with Chandni, and if he expressed too great
an interest in her wellbeing, they might begin to suspect the
feelings that he wasn’t yet ready to share with them.

Arun struggled with the execution of his grand plan
all day and it was only at the conclusion of dinner that evening
that the right opportunity unexpectedly presented itself.

‘Hey Arun, which suit do you want to borrow from the
shop of Lucky today?’

‘Actually, Lucky, I don’t know if I should come to
the mandir tonight. I’m not really feeling all that well,’ he
lied.

‘Oh no, what is the matter?’ cried Lucky, at once
serious and concerned.

‘Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing major, don’t worry. My
stomach has just been hurting a lot today. I think it might have
been something that I ate.’

‘Hey! It’s nothing that you ate! We have all eaten
the same things and Lucky and I are fine, isn’t it?’ shrieked
Hanara, mortally offended.

‘I didn’t mean it like that. You know that I love
your food, it’s just that my stomach’s not used to all that
spice.’

Hanara grumbled loudly, but seemed to accept his
reasoning without further complaint.

‘Are you sure you won’t come? Everybody will be so
very disappointed not to see you,’ Lucky pleaded.

‘I don't think that I can sit through the prayers,
Lucky. I’ve been in and out of the bathroom all day and – ’

‘Okay, okay,’ conceded Lucky, holding his hands up
defensively to signal that he understood what Arun was hinting at,
‘you just stay here and rest.’

Hanara and Lucky washed and changed their clothes as
usual, and only once Hanara was satisfied that there was nothing
more that she could do to make Arun comfortable did the pair set
off for the mandir. When the chugging of the rickshaw became a
faint and distant sound, Arun eased himself from the nook that he
had created amongst the cushions and set about freshening himself
up for his visit. He combed his hair and washed his face, but opted
to remain in the same clothes, not wanting to appear to have tried
too hard. Satisfied that he looked the part, he stepped out into
the yard and closed the door to the house softly behind him.

The air was still and the streets were dusty and
quiet, save for the nightly chorus of crickets emanating from the
surrounding fields. Arun knew vaguely how to reach the street that
Chandni lived on and he was certain that he would recognise her
house when he saw it, but he struggled to retrace the journey in
the darkness, with even less light than usual. He walked slowly,
but with purpose, tiny beads of perspiration gathering around his
temples, on account of both the humidity and his growing nerves.
His stomach began to tie itself in knots and when he finally turned
the corner onto Chandni’s street, a flood of doubts filled his
mind, causing him to question what he was about to do. He wrestled
silently with his conscience, worried that Chandni might find it
odd that he cared so much, but by the time her house came into
view, he reasoned that it was too late to turn back.

He walked across the small yard and approached the
house, where a soft halo of light surrounded the front door in the
places that it didn’t quite fit its frame. He knocked twice and
stood back to wait, the butterflies in the pit of his stomach now
forcefully beating their wings. After a few minutes, when there was
no answer, he stepped forward and knocked again a little louder,
hoping that Chandni hadn’t gone to the mandir that evening after
all. Again there was no response, but just when Arun was about to
knock a third time, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching and
the door was suddenly thrown open to reveal Chandni’s surprised
face peering up at him. Arun’s heart stopped instantly; she was
just as beautiful as he remembered.